North Korean missile test travels 600 miles, Pentagon confirms

North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday that the Pentagon estimates traveled more than 600 miles — ending a more than two-month lull in Pyongyang's provocative behavior.

"The missile was launched from Sain Ni, North Korea, and traveled about 1000 km before splashing down in the Sea of Japan, within Japan's Economic Exclusion Zone," Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed in a statement. "We are working with our interagency partners on a more detailed assessment of the launch."

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also tweeted that President Donald Trump "was briefed, while missile was still in the air, on the situation in North Korea.”

Tensions with North Korea — which is subject to a series of U.S. and international sanctions for its outlawed missile and nuclear weapons programs — have reached a boiling point this year as Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have increasingly traded inflammatory barbs.

North Korea has test-fired 15 missiles so far in 2017 and conducted its sixth underground nuclear test in September.

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Tuesday’s missile launch is the first since mid-September, when North Korea fired a missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido into the Pacific Ocean.

Some experts viewed the latest test as noteworthy because it was conducted in the middle of the night in North Korea.

Such launches are harder for the U.S. to track, said Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are also more difficult to intercept with missile defense systems, he said.

Just minutes after the launch, the South Korean military conducted a “precision strike” missile test of its own in response, local media reported.

Narang said this quick response shows that the South Koreans are increasing their operational tempo and readiness to respond to the growing North Korean threat.

Manning, the Pentagon spokesman, said that "in the face of these threats," the U.S. commitment to its allies in the region "remains ironclad."

"We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation," he said.

He added that the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which tracks aerial threats to the United States, "determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America, our territories or our allies."